President Obama announced that his administration’s proposed budget will include a 1% pay raise for federal workers, the Washington Post reports. Union leaders and some Democrats have decried this raise as unfair and unreasonable, given the three-year pay freeze and 2013 furloughs federal workers have faced. Administration officials defended the raise, noting “the tight budget constraints” the administration continues to face.
Boston.com reports that adjunct professors at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts voted 359 to 67 to join the Adjunct Action union. The vote comes after adjuncts at another Boston-area school, Tufts, voted to unionize in September last year.
President Obama will announce today the creation of “two Pentagon-led institutes that will combine public and private resources to foster manufacturing innovation” and bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., the Washington Post reports. The centers will be located in Chicago and outside Detroit.
Contract negotiations will soon begin between Kelloggs and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union in Omaha, KETV Omaha reports. Workers expressed fear that Kelloggs would give them the type of ultimatum it gave workers at its Memphis plant in October, when it told the Union it could either accept a pay cut of $6 an hour for new employees and agree that new employees would not receive benefits or full-time positions, or face a lockout. Kelloggs has defended its actions, saying that demand for cereal is down.
The Washington Post reports that more than 200 people rallied outside the statehouse in Annapolis last night in support of bills to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, stop foreclosure for six months, prohibit police from turning people over to immigration authorities, and increase funding to four historically black colleges and universities.
Daily News & Commentary
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May 22
U.S. employers spend $1.7B on union avoidance each year and the ICJ declares the right to strike a protected activity.
May 21
UAW backs legal challenge to Trump “gold card” visa; DOL requests unemployment fraud technology funding; Samsung reaches eleventh-hour union agreement.
May 20
LIRR strike ends after three-day shutdown; key senators reject Trump's proposed 26% cut to Labor Department budget; EEOC moves to eliminate employer demographic reporting requirement.
May 19
Amazon urges 11th Circuit to overturn captive-audience meeting ban; DOL scraps Biden overtime rule; SCOTUS to decide on Title IX private right of action for school employees
May 18
California Department of Justice finds conditions at ICE facilities inhumane; Second Circuit rejects race bias claim from Black and Hispanic social workers; FAA cuts air traffic controller staffing target.
May 17
UC workers avoid striking with an 11th-hour agreement; Governor Spanberger vetoes public employee collective bargaining protections; Samsung workers prepare for an 18-day strike.